Intentional details at the Jacquemus SS26 show
At the start of the year, as we planned our first gatherings, we found ourselves editing more than adding.
There are more brands, more objects and more references than ever before, particularly in fashion and vintage. And yet, clarity feels rarer. What do you actually like? What do you return to? What feels considered rather than accumulated?
This season, our studio is thinking about style as an act of intention: formed through choice, restraint and repetition. The concept of heritage, in this sense, becomes a guide rather than a costume: a way of understanding what endures, and what can be carried forward.
The gatherings we’re hosting this quarter reflect that thinking. Spotlighting a creative whose work bridges lineage and modern femininity. Bringing together already-curated vintage stores to ask quieter questions about taste and selection. Less about more, and more about meaning.
This issue is an opening chapter.
CURATED NOTES
This Week’s Cultural Edit
Bottega Veneta’s Summer 2026 Campaign, captured by Juergen Teller
In Art
There are only a few weeks left to see House of Music, Peter Doig’s free exhibition at the Serpentine Gallery. Doig’s work exists in a space between memory and imagination; familiar scenes rendered just out of reach. His paintings resist immediacy, unfolding instead through repetition and time. In an era of constant visual stimulation, this exhibition feels like an invitation to linger, to look again, and to trust your own interpretation of art.
In Fashion
Louise Trotter’s first campaign for Bottega Veneta is a masterclass in restraint. Rather than chasing spectacle, the work centres on silhouette, material and proportion rooted in the house’s heritage. Shot in Venice, the Summer 2026 campaign uses the city not as backdrop, but as texture: stone, shadow and water mirroring the tactility of woven leather and precise tailoring. It reflects a broader shift we’re noticing in fashion, away from constant reinvention and toward clarity of vision.
In Food
A recent list naming the UK’s best coffee shops highlights a shared thread across London’s most enduring cafés: consistency. Places like Prufrock, Catalyst and Carbon Kopi stand out not through trend-led design or novelty, but through commitment to craft and repetition. Taste here is something built slowly through habit rather than hype.
In Design
In Montreal, Aesop has stepped further away from the traditional idea of retail. Its new spa opened in collaboration with Recess Thermal Station takes the form of a guided, time-bound ritual, moving the body through temperature, texture, light and sound. Designed by Future Simple Studio, the experience prioritises sensation over spectacle — a reminder that considered design is often about subtraction rather than scale.
WHERE TO DINE THIS WEEKEND
Le Café NAC, Belgravia
Credit: Le Café NAC
Le Café NAC feels assured in its simplicity. Tucked away in Belgravia, the space blends Parisian café culture with London restraint: soft lighting, thoughtful proportions and an atmosphere that encourages staying rather than rushing.
The menu leans classic and unfussy, allowing quality to speak for itself. You’ll want to return to this place not for surprise, but for familiarity done well. A reminder that good taste often reveals itself through repetition.
FROM THE STUDIO
This Season’s Soirées
As we shape our program for the season ahead, we’ve found ourselves returning to a shared question:
How do we live, and dress, more intentionally in a world of endless choice?
Across fashion, design and culture, abundance has become the default. But taste is not built through accumulation. It’s built through selection. This is the thinking behind our upcoming gatherings.
Credit: Sasha Donnellan Studio
A Dinner in Style: Where Taste Meets Craftsmanship (February 2026)
Our first soirée of the year brings us together at La Maison Ani with Sasha Donnellan, an emerging creative whose work bridges heritage techniques with a distinctly modern femininity. Sasha’s practice is rooted in understanding lineage: where things come from, how they’re made, and why they endure. In spotlighting her work, we’re interested in continuity and how tradition can be carried forward with intention.
Credit: Jimmy Choo
Private or Performed: A Curated Vintage Exhibition (March 2026)
Later this season, we’ll host a vintage fashion exhibition with Don’t Quote Me, a fashion psychology Substack by Kim Jana. In an era of rampant resale and constant “curation,” this exhibition is an exercise in discernment. Rather than offering more, it asks a quieter question: what’s worth keeping? By bringing together already-curated stores under one roof, the focus shifts from consumption to point of view: from owning many things, to understanding why you choose certain ones.
These soirées are not isolated events. They are chapters in an ongoing practice: gatherings shaped by restraint, authorship and a belief that style, at its best, is deeply personal.
More soon.
“The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.”
— Hans Hofmann
With love,
The Last Soirée
